Bill 66

In December the
Ontario Government introduced Bill 66 – Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness
Act – in the Legislature. Among the many proposals in the Bill, are changes
to the Province’s planning legislation that could negate some of the
environmental protections that naturalist organizations and individuals have
fought for in the past.

Municipalities
would be able to ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to pass an
“Open-for-Business Planning By-law” (OFB-ZBL) to apply to major business
developments that would “meet a minimum job creation threshold (e.g. 50 jobs
for municipalities with a population of less than 250,000 people).”

Among the features
of an OFB-ZBL are:

an OFB-ZBL need not conform with an Official Plan

an OFB-ZBL cannot be appealed to the Local Planning
Appeal Tribunal (formerly the Ontario Municipal Board until April last year)

a municipality is not required to hold public meetings
with respect to an OFB-ZBL

an OFB-ZBL need not conform to significant threat
policies and designated Great Lakes Policies, or have regard to any other
policy set out in a drinking water source protection plan prepared under the
Clean Water Act, 2006

an OFB-ZBL need not conform to various initiatives and
policies created under the Great Lakes Protection Act, 2015

an OFB-ZBL need not conform to the Ontario Greenbelt
Plan

an OFB-ZBL need not conform with the Oak Ridges
Moraine Conservation Plan